Top 5 PPC Tricks to Boost Performance

The current market situation means getting those conversions at minimal costs is ever more important. That means that more companies are pushing online budgets to drive those conversions. Nothing more is highlighting that then the huge news that online marketing spend has (finally) overtaken TV.

http://www.revolutionmagazine.com/news/942047/Its-official-online-bigger-TV-ad-spend-figures-show/

Of course this now makes an already competitive landscape a feeding frenzy with all advertisers scrambling for that click.

PPC is a popular method of building a market presence on search engines. Which other method can push you to the top of the first page on some of the most competitive keywords in the market? So here are my top 5 tips on driving your company up the landscape whilst keeping costs at a minimum.

Number 1: Negatives

So regularly over looked but so vital and also so unique to PPC. Negatives can prevent your site from appearing against unwanted traffic. When you pay for each click, it is vitally important that each click has the highest chance of conversion. PPC gives you a unique opportunity to prevent unwanted clicks by adding terms that you don’t want to appear against. Whether it’s terms that are nothing to do with your company, or even a product you don’t have. By preventing your ad appearing you prevent a wasted click, wasted spend. Even more so, this aids your quality score because your ad is relevant to the searches you appear against and this can push up your position on the landscape. Regular SQR reports will highlight which terms you are broad matching against and should be added as negatives.


Number 2: Landing Page URL

So many times you see every keyword land on the homepage, forcing the user to find the product they are after. Trawling through web pages on your company site may look impressive on bounce rates but realistically searchers do not enjoy this and conversion rates are generally low. Make your destination URL as relevant as you possibly can. If your keyword is a product, land it on the product page. This will increase conversion rates and create a pleasant user experience. They will look for your ad again knowing that it directs straight to the product they want. However, be wary! Destination URLs are very much a judgement call: of course you want to be specific but don’t make it too specific. Make sure if you have alternative products, a user can see them!


Number 3: Use Exact Match

This seems like an obvious one but PPC agencies often don’t think about the greatness which is using exact match as well as broad match. Simply put, exact match you will appear only for this exact search term. And this can be hugely beneficial. If you know that you will only appear on this term, you can push your CPC up! You can push yourself higher on the landscape confident that your conversion rate will be higher because of the relevancy. Let a keyword perform on all matches, but ensure that your CPC on exact is always higher. It’s almost guaranteed that spend will be lower but conversion rates higher. Do a match type analysis on your account and I bet exact match (if you have it) out performs others. That is not to say you should only run on exact match, just ensure every keyword is at least on exact and broad match.


Number 4: Make Your Ad Text Relevant

This is generally the one attempt you have to lure searchers into your site. And let’s face it, if you have a relevant ad, Google will help you drive users to your site. Using the keyword in your ad text is always a key way of ensuring it stands out from the landscape “crowd”. Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) is an effective way of doing this when you have many keywords in an ad group. But realistically, your ads performance is based on the landscape. You want your ad to stand out. Price points and Discounts are always strong but can be overused and potentially they may not be competitive. Similarly, DKI can be extremely useful but if everyone is utilising this, no ads differentiate. Look at the landscape for your strongest keywords and make a decision based on this. Sometimes breaking away from the normal can be the key to success.


Number 5: Optimisation

PPC is an every changing landscape. With quality score and your competitors CPC differentiating continuously, if you leave a well managed PPC account alone, when you return it will be in disarray. Optimisation is a difficult technique and is one that takes a lot of training and experience. It’s not a simple case of pushing CPC. It’s about the impact it has on your account and the reaction to your position. Of course CPCs are an important aspect of that but reviewing ads, CTR, negatives, landing pages, conversion rates and competitors actions are also very important. All these need to be checked and changed regularly as a reaction to the landscape. PPC is a fantastic way of driving volume and conversions but is also an easy way to drive costs if you are not careful. This can happen even to the longest serving PPC companies. Never, ever, relax. You are part of the most volatile market in the world. Respect it!.